Will women ever be able to beat men at the Olympics?
Not likely - simply because believing that linear improvements in the past will continue into the future is an erroneous assumption.
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IF EXPERIENCE teaches us anything, it's that making predictions is a fool's game. But that doesn't stop regular predictions that top women athletes will soon be competing with the best men, and may even outperform them someday.
Is there any truth to this idea, and how do intersex athletes, like Caster Semenya, complicate the discussion?
In 1992, two eminent physiologists published a paper in Nature with the provocative title "Will women soon outrun men?" They concluded that if women's running performance continued to improve as rapidly as it had since the 1920s, top women athletes would soon be running as quickly as the best men and might even be faster in the future.
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